Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Ian McEwan is a very good writer the first half of Atonement alone would ensure him a lasting place in English letters.
John Banville
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
John Banville
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: December 8
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Benjamin Black
William John Banville
Alone
Half
Mcewan
Place
Atonement
Firsts
Ensure
First
Lasting
Good
Letters
Would
English
Writer
More quotes by John Banville
The sentence is the greatest human invention of civilization.
John Banville
The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant.
John Banville
I shall strip away layer after layer of grime -- the toffee-colored varnish and caked soot left by a lifetime of dissembling -- until I come to the very thing itself and know it for what it is. My soul. My self.
John Banville
Everything we do is tinged with the knowledge that this may be the last time that we will do this, and that makes what we're doing incredibly sweet.
John Banville
In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.
John Banville
I am the worst judge of my books.
John Banville
The effect of prizes on one's career - if that is what to call it - is considerable, since they give one more clout with publishers and more notoriety among journalists. The effect on one's writing, however, is nil - otherwise, one would be in deep trouble.
John Banville
I think I'm less the writer than I'm the written.
John Banville
I never went to university. I'm self-educated. I didn't go because I was too impatient, too arrogant.
John Banville
No two things the same, the equals sign a scandal.
John Banville
The secret of survival is a defective imagination.
John Banville
All my life I have lied. I lied to escape, I lied to be loved, I lied for placement and power I lied to lie. It was a way of living lies are life's almost-anagram.
John Banville
...being alone with him was like being in a room which someone had just violently left
John Banville
Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.
John Banville
Art is amoral, whether we accept this or not it does not take sides. The finest fictions are cold at heart.
John Banville
Fictional characters are made of words, not flesh they do not have free will, they do not exercise volition. They are easily born, and as easily killed off.
John Banville
And indeed nothing had happened, a momentous nothing, just another of the great world's shrugs of indifference.
John Banville
A man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.
John Banville
I'm full of self-doubt. I doubt everything I do. Everything I do is a failure.
John Banville
Given the world that he created, it would be an impiety against God to believe in him.
John Banville
